a bleeding purple utah jazz blog

Random Bits of Off-Day Odds and Ends

One. A thought on AK becoming an American citizen: If I were him, I would’ve waited until my max contract expired before taking the oath. As it is now, though, U.S.-based Jazz fans can stop complaining about his salary. He’s going to have to pay taxes on half of his 2010-2011 salary, so y’all getting it back in the form of highways, education for your kids, and TSA hires. Yay!

Two. I cracked up listening to CJ’s practice audio today. If you forward to the last ten seconds, you hear CJ answering questions with Deron in the background trying to get AK’s attention. “A-Kizzle! AK! AK! US Citizen Kirilenko!”

Three. There was some discussion on Twitter earlier today about this tweet, and how it almost seemed like Jerry was saying goodbye to a traded player:

But that’s just the nature of Twitter, right? Here’s the entire soundbyte/quote:

Andrei’s a wonderful guy, there’s no question about that. He’s been a good guy to deal with over the years. We haven’t always seen eye to eye, but he’s always tried to do the best he can when he plays and that’s all you can ask anybody to do. (KFAN audio)

Four. DO NOT LIKE:

[Millsap] said he prefers to start, but adds, “You’ve got to play your role no matter what it is.”

Jefferson said he enjoyed coming off the bench his first two years in Boston, but has started the last four-plus years and likes it.

I’m probably overly sensitive on this stupid issue because of “I AM a starter, hands down, period,” but would it kill players to say “whatever’s best for the team” or “whatever Coach wants” even if they don’t mean it?

Until they can put their own personal expectations aside, how are we going to win games? Perhaps it isn’t a coincidence that the second unit plays together so well, and that we get good results when AK (who often says he’s OK with either starting or coming off the bench) runs with them.

Five. He might have the most job security in America, but all the man knows is work:

Six. It’s always weird to see Jazz players before or after they were Jazz players wearing headbands. On a slow day during the off-season last year, I threw up some random pics including one of Matt Harpring in a headband. (We’ll just ignore my message to Al that day because I couldn’t have been more way off-base there.) Here’s Raja, Sap, and Al back when they were young(er) pups: